


Happy Castle Fun Park

by darkdropout



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-12 03:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkdropout/pseuds/darkdropout
Summary: Too bad Aiba forgot to mention this castle was actually a fun park.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unfinished, out of order drabbles that are generally unfit for AO3 posting. Enjoy!

Nino is only four and a half hours from Tokyo when he starts to regret every life choice he has ever made that has gotten him to this point – this point where he is now, clinging white-knuckled to the dashboard of Aiba’s beat-up, clearly-unfit-for-travel Jeep Ranger as it careens up the winding, jagged, clearly-unfit-for-travel road of a _mountain_.   
  
_A mountain._  
  
Has Nino ever even _been_ on a mountain before?   
  
He’s about to be, that’s for sure.   
  
Two weeks ago, Nino lost his job, and along with it, his company owned apartment, company owned furnishings, and company owned car. Now with only a backpack of clothes and rolling suitcase full of game consoles to his name, he supposes he should just be thankful that he knows someone as dumb as Aiba to come to his rescue.   
  
“Come stay with me!” Aiba had practically bellowed down the phone in response to Nino’s desperate call. “It’ll be just like old times! You need a job? I can get you a job! What do you know about castles?”  
  
“About as much as I know about mountains,” is what Nino had said, and yet Aiba had still showed up on his doorstep the very next morning with his death-trap of a motor vehicle and a smile big enough to push away even the most stubbornly deep of Nino’s anxieties about getting into the passenger’s seat.   
  
“This is going to be so much fun!” Aiba had said gleefully as Nino struggled to strap himself in with some degree of safety. “You’re going to love Happy Castle Fun Park. It’s the best!”  
  
“Happy Castle Fun Park?” Nino had repeated, in horror. “You said castle on the phone – not fun park.”  
  
“Castle, fun park. It’s both really! Now fasten your seatbelt, here we go!”  
  
Nino has no one but himself to blame as Aiba’s lead foot takes them further and further away from civilization. But more than that, he has nowhere else to go.   
  
Soon they’ll be at the top of a mountain and Happy Castle Fun Park awaits.


	2. Chapter 2

As advertised, Happy Castle Fun Park is both a castle and a fun park. More accurately, it is a legitimate historical site with the remnants of a pre-Sengoku, wooden _yamahiro_ castle – now with the new modern addition of a fun park. The fun park includes a café, gift shop, guided educational tours and a small stage out back with live action adventure shows every hour on the hour, twice an hour during the summer rush.  
  
Nino gleans all of this information from the 5 meter high billboard at the park’s entrance – or at least as much as he can glean without barfing when Aiba swerves by it at top speed, taking a sharp left into what must be the employee parking lot and careening to a stop. Nino has barely recovered himself before Aiba is out of the jeep and wrenching the passenger side door unceremoniously out from under him.  
  
“Nino! Welcome!” he says with delight. He pauses to take an exaggeratedly deep breath. “Smell that fresh mountain air, Nino! Isn’t it the best?”  
  
Nino decides not to answer that. In all honesty, fresh air has never much agreed with him and it doesn’t take more than a shallow inhale for him to double-down on his regret.  
  
It smells like _nature_ here.  
  
What has he done?  
  
*  
  
The gift shop is empty when they enter it a few minutes later, Aiba insisting that there is no time like the present for Nino to offer himself as a candidate for employment. Nino is still too nauseated from the long drive and the fresh mountain air to protest much, so he can only follow behind as Aiba leads him from the parking lot to the small building beside it decorated to look like an old-fashioned inn.  
  
“Mina-san!” Aiba calls out in perfect sync with the jingling bell above the gift shop door, set off as he swings it open and ushers a still dubious Nino inside. “I brought a new recruit for you!”  
  
This announcement is met with silence, but Aiba seems unperturbed by it. He waits, and Nino waits too. After a moment, there’s a soft shuffling sound from behind the counter to the right side of the shop. A curtain – dark blue and with the emblem of a sakura blossom in white against it – parts enough to reveal a small figure.  
  
“Mina-san,” Aiba greets with a swift bow of his head. “Thanks for the hard work!”  
  
The curtain is pulled back further and a woman steps forward. She’s petite, shorter even than Nino, with a soft, round face and long nose over cupid’s bow lips. Her dark hair is cut into a short bob that’s tucked behind her small ears. She looks first to Aiba, then Nino, her almond-shaped eyes observing him with a completely neutral expression.  
  
When she makes no move to speak, Aiba continues. “This is Ninomiya Kazunari, my childhood friend. He’d like to apply for the open position. Nino, this is Ohno Mina – the proprietress of Happy Castle Fun Park.”  
  
“Nice to meet you,” Nino says, bowing his head.  
  
The woman continues to stare at him with little noticeable reaction, but eventually, tilts her head forward, just the smallest fraction.  
  
“Nice to meet you,” she says in a slow, gentle mumble. “Aiba-chan says you can start right away. Do you know how to use a cash register?”  
  
“Sure,” Nino says and it’s not a lie – there was an archaic cash register at the Aiba’s family restaurant where he’d helped out on a few busy Saturdays back in junior high school.  
  
Mina blinks at him, once, then twice. “Can you start today?”  
  
Nino hesitates – just for one inhale and one exhale of fresh mountain air. But it’s too late to back out now.  
  
“I can,” he answers and beside him Aiba lets out a whoop of excitement.  
  
Mina smiles then, a little lopsided, her eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s cute, Nino thinks, seconds before his mind goes entirely blank as Mina steps out for behind the counter to reveal the unexpected sight of her large, protruding belly.  
  
Ohno Mina is pregnant. _Very_ pregnant.  
  
A vague memory surfaces – one from the long, death-defying trip here, in which Aiba explained that the job opening was to help while Mina was out on maternity leave. Nino had been so busy trying not to lose the contents of his stomach inside Aiba’s jeep that some of the details had understandably slipped his mind.  
  
Mina places a hand on her belly. “Thank you, Ninomiya-kun. You’ll be a big help.”  
  
“Call me Nino,” he tells her.  
  
“Nino,” she repeats, amused.  
  
She looks him over again, more closely now. Her vague expression from a moment ago is suddenly more focused.   
  
“Have you met Satoshi yet?” she asks.  
  
Aiba shakes his head. “He hasn’t met him yet.”  
  
Mina smiles again, this time it's not much more than a mischievous tug at the corner of her mouth.  
  
“Ah,” she says – and even though Nino has only known her for a handful of minutes, he’s not sure he likes the way she’s looking at him now as she continues, “he’ll find you then.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this takes place a long time after the last part! sorry!!

Nino doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up the car is parked back in the castle lot and Aiba is gone.

Instead, Ohno is in the driver’s seat, slouched over the center console and leaning far too close into Nino’s personal space.

Nino should probably find it creepy, but he doesn’t.

“Hi,” Ohno says.

Nino stretches, back cracking in a satisfying way. “It’s against the law for you to drive this vehicle without a license,” he says to Ohno, sleepily.

“I could get a license.”

Ohno’s smile is soft and sweet and absolutely unfair. Nino has to look away from it. He can feel Ohno squirming in the seat beside him as he finds an excuse to advert his gaze by busying himself with the passenger’s side seatbelt. The seatbelts in Aiba’s Jeep are always stubborn, and the time it takes Nino to struggle with it is time that he can use to will his heart to stop pounding so loudly in his chest.

He’s still working up the courage to look in Ohno’s direction again, when Ohno blurts it out.

“I like you.”

Nino’s seatbelt slips off his shoulder and back into place with a treacherous zing.

“Like I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you all the time,” Ohno adds, for clarification.

Nino can’t help himself. He hides his face in his hands.

“Ohno-san,” he moans into the safety of his palms. “You can’t say things like that.”

“I said it,” Ohno confirms, without a trace of guilt – but he should feel guilty, he should feel _very_ guilty, for doing this to Nino, for putting Nino in this situation.

“You can’t kiss me,” he tells Ohno, firmly.

“Why not?”

Nino can hear the frown in Ohno’s voice and he’s glad his face is covered. Ohno is unbearably adorable when he frowns.

That’s the problem. That’s _exactly_ the problem, Nino thinks as he gives a heavy sigh of frustration, heart pounding harder than ever.

“Because if you kiss me, I’ll never get off of this stupid mountain top.”

“Huh?” Ohno says, and that’s adorable too.

Nino finally emerges, scrubbing at his face roughly. He can’t quite look Ohno in the eye yet.

“If you kiss me, and I kiss you,” he says in as measured a tone as he can manage, “I’ll like it way too much. And I won’t ever go home.”

Ohno lets out a soft sound of surprise. He slumps back into the driver’s seat. “That would be bad, huh?” he says after a moment. “You want to go home.”

“Right,” says Nino, torn somewhere between relief and despair.

Ohno nods his head in understanding, but the corner of his mouth is twitching ever so slightly upward and Nino’s stomach ties itself into knots at the sight of it.

Ohno is laughing at him. And Nino is going to be stuck on this mountain for the rest of his life.

“Okay,” Ohno agrees. “I won’t kiss Nino and Nino won’t kiss me.”

“Thanks,” Nino mumbles.

Ohno leans forward towards the dashboard, folding his arms on the steering wheel and resting his chin on them. He squints out Aiba’s perpetually dirty windshield, out towards the horizon, where the setting sun should be if it wasn’t blocked by a god-awful gigantic mountain.

“Wanna come over for dinner?” he asks Nino. “Onee-chan said I could invite you.”

Nino glances at him suspiciously. “You won’t try to kiss me?”

When Ohno turns to look at him, his expression is one of complete, angelic sincerity.

“I won’t,” he promises.

Nino doesn’t entirely believe him, but he gets out of the car and follows Ohno home anyway.

 


	4. Chapter 4

When dinner is over and Ohno has made a show of being a dutiful brother who scrubs dishes with a filial obedience that Nino can only wonder at, things take an unfortunate turn.

“I’m going to show Nino my room!” Ohno declares proudly, tossing the damp dishtowel over his shoulder where it lands perfectly on the counter behind him with a ninja’s accuracy.

Nino nearly chokes on the last sip of his tea. He glances towards Mina, a bit desperately, where she’s sitting across from him at the small kitchen table. But if he was expecting some kind of admonishment from her – some kind of scolding like “Satoshi, no boys in your room after curfew” – he’s out of luck.

Instead the look in her eyes is as unreadable as usual, yet there’s no mistaking that mischievous tug at the corner of her lips – the same one Nino’s become all too familiar with in the last few weeks.

The Ohno Family is trying to kill him.

*

Ohno’s room is on the second story of the house. Nino’s feet carry him up the stairs before he can tell them not to. A first step becomes a second, then a third, and he’s so intent on cursing them for their betrayal that when Ohno comes to an abrupt stop in front of him, Nino almost runs directly into Ohno’s back.

“Welcome,” Ohno says, pushing open the door.

The room is nothing like Nino expected. It’s small, entirely white, with no trace of decoration or any of Ohno’s peculiar hobbies to be found. Not a fishing rod or paint brush in sight. Not even a picture frame. There’s a small desk against one wall, a low table in the middle of the floor. A narrow, twin-sized bed is shoved into one corner, western style and so neatly made that Nino feels a sudden surge of heat from head to toe. He’s not sure at what point crisply folded hospital corners have become a turn-on for him, but like everything else that has gone topsy-turvy in his life since he arrived in this god forsaken place, he will blame it on the altitude.

Ohno sits down on the bed, grinning widely as he pats the space beside him, the sheets creasing beneath his fingers. “Sit!”

Nino wishes he had to be asked twice, but he doesn’t.

He sits, the mattress dipping with his added weight just enough to have him sliding closer into Ohno’s space. Ohno doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t even blink as their shoulders bump together comfortably.

Minutes tick past. Ohno is warm beside him, quiet beside him, and Nino feels the danger, his own impending peril, with every mountain-top, oxygen-deprived breath.

“I promised,” says Ohno, finally. His voice is soft, sincere, a little frustrated.

“You promised,” Nino repeats, firmly, though he’s not sure he doesn’t sound the same.

_“I won’t kiss Nino and Nino won’t kiss me.”_

Ohno turns to look at him then, and he’s so close – too close.

Not close enough.

“What was the reason again?” Ohno asks him and how many hours has it even been since they've had this conversation? 

Nino takes a shaky breath, wipes a palm over his face, and wills himself to remember. “If you kiss me, and I kiss you, I’ll like it way too much. And I won’t ever go home.”

Ohno nods slowly. “I promised,” he says again. “I don’t want to break it.”

He smiles at Nino, that undeniable smile – soft and sweet and absolutely unfair – and Nino has been doomed from the start.

“Then I’ll break it,” Nino says and before he can stop himself he’s surging forward, knocking Ohno over and pinning him to the bed Ohno lets out a sound of surprise and Nino only gets a brief glimpse of the delighted look on his face before they're kissing.

Nino has spent the last two months imagining this. He’s built it up and torn it down a thousand times in his head, and in his weaker moments, he’s given into his fantasies in the dead of night. He’s blamed it on the altitude, the fresh air, and scenic views.

It’s none of those things. It’s so much better. It’s so much worse.

This is exactly what he’s been afraid of, he thinks, as he kisses Ohno and Ohno kisses him and kisses him and kisses him.

He’s in love with Ohno Satoshi.

And he’s never getting off the fucking mountain.

 


End file.
